Monday, May 10, 2010

In the last twenty-four hours, Sami Salo's testicle has become a nut of legend. The story's been passed around traditional and non-traditional markets (a number of our hits from late last night came from basketball reporters comparing Salo's injury to Steve Nash's), and I'm sure you've told it to a friend or two. It's certainly nearing time to move on. But have we done enough? The opportunity to make Wiener Jokes is fading quickly, and I have a hard time believing the Vancouver media has had all the fun they can.

Let's be honest. The Vancouver media are the sort that titters at the word titter. Tommy Larscheid alone has a tendency towards a saucy double entendre, even if most are unintentional. His Larscheid-isms are classics: "I could watch Paul Kariya play with himself all day", for instance, or the infamous "I just came from the Canucks dressing room and Pavel's groin has never felt better". It's pretty funny stuff. He also once said, "Let's face facts: Jan Bulis is just a dumb hockey player." But hey now, Tommy. Play nice.

What about Willie Mitchell's long stick? Kyle Wellwood's little stick? How about the constant jokes about Roberto Luongo's knob this year alone? There have been dozens. The media loves indirectly referring to twangers. Hell, this is a chance to use words rarely used in journalism, like nutsack. Why the conservative streak all of a sudden when it comes to Sami's grapes? It's gotta be fear. Fear of karma. Fear of having their nuts crushed by a puck because they mocked someone else for the same thing.

There's no other excuse for missing joke potential so obviously. See, for example, Dan Rosen's NHL.com article about the Canucks victory last night. His thesis: it was a gutsy win. His opening sentence: "The word gutsy kept coming up in the Canucks dressing room late Sunday night."

Come on, man. You know what's a synonym for guts? You know what else was probably "coming up" for other reasons? You know what's a way better word choice? Balls. Just say balls, Dan Rosen. You know you want to. The word "balls" kept coming up in the Vancouver Canucks' dressing room late Sunday night. This is a much better opener. Sami Salo's nut basically exploded last night. Is there any excuse for an article in which the only tongue-in-cheek reference about it is inadvertent? "'The boys stepped up huge,' said [Shane] O'Brien.

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